Trump’s immigration policy does more harm than good

President Trump has implemented a moratorium on immigration from certain Muslim countries. Many people believe the underlying reason is not protection from terrorism but racial and religious discrimination. The U.S. Constitution forbids discrimination based on religion and/or race, yet Trump just fired the Secretary of the U.S. Justice Department for citing that reason for not enforcing the moratorium.

Most of the 9-11-2001 terrorists were Saudi, yet Trump’s edict does not include Saudi Arabia in the moratorium.

Trump is hitting a fly with a sledgehammer. Statics show that his edict does great harm to many, many innocent families with a minuscule chance of stopping terrorism.

The Cato Institute, a conservative, libertarian think tank, founded by Charles Koch of the famous Koch brothers duo, in September 2016, released a study that concluded as follows:

“The chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack caused by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 billion per year, while the chance of being murdered in an attack committed by an illegal immigrant is an astronomical 1 in 10.9 billion per year. By contrast, the chance of being murdered by a tourist on a B visa, the most common tourist visa, is 1 in 3.9 million per year.”

Notice that the first two figures are “billion” and the last figure in “million,” meaning that U.S. citizens have a much greater reason to fear the average tourist than a terrorist.

Gary Dielman

Baker City